Examinations of electrical characteristics of an electronic circuit such as an IC or an LSI formed on a semiconductor wafer have been carried out by the use of a probe card attached to probing apparatus. The probe card typically comprises a contactor supporting a large number of probe pins and a circuit board electrically connected to the contactor. The examinations of the electrical characteristics of the wafer have been carried out in such a way that electrodes of the wafer are brought into contact with the probe pins, and an electrical signal for the examinations from the circuit board is transmitted/received to/from the wafer through the contactor and the probe pins.
Meanwhile, to properly and stably carry out the above-described examinations of the electrical characteristics, it is necessary to stabilize the contacts between the probe pins and the wafer. In order to provide this, interposing a vertically movable connecting ring between the contactor and the circuit board has been proposed, and the proposal includes Japanese published unexamined patent application No. H05-264589.
To stabilize the contacts between the wafer and the probe pins, it is necessary not only to absorb the distortion and inclination that arise at the time of manufacture processing and are inherent in the circuit board and the contactor, but also to accommodate the distortion and inclination of the entire probe card with respect to the wafer that arise when the probe card is attached to the probing apparatus. However, with the use of the above-described connecting ring, the distortion and inclination of the entire probe card have not been able to be accommodated, and therefore the contacts between the wafer and the probe pins have not been able to be sufficiently stabilized.
The present invention has been made in consideration of such a point, and it is therefore an object of the present invention to sufficiently stabilize the contacts between an examination object such as the wafer and the probe pins.